Homework?

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khkhk:
I have to agree with you, I hate homework! Why can’t school be done in school??? Instead of doing it at home…what’s the point??? Taking away family/social time???
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Sarah/khkjk–I just checked your profile and you are exactly one month older than my daughter. Welcome to being a new teenager.

I am sure you all hate homework. Who doesn’t? And if it is evil (as one of you claim), unfortunately it is a necessary evil. My husband teaches college and recognizes that there is no way his students can learn everything based ONLY on what he teaches them in class. They need to work their homework problems, and do the readings in order to really understand what he teaches.

Frankly, I don’t think homework is evil. It is productive. TV, however, is truly evil!
 
Really, I don’t see a problem with what my son gets for homework.
It is a Montessori school so he gets most of his lessons one on one or in a small group. They don’t dumb things down for kids. I have helped in the classroom and I know my son is excelling because they don’t keep him from learning.

What we do at home is mostly a little reinforcement for what he did at school today. I know because he brings home a journal everyday with what he did that day at school.

The All Saints Day project is meant to be a family effort and my husband is doing most of the report portion and I get to do the costume part – way cool for me. I would rather sew a costume than curtains. I managed to snag a doll for 50cents that will be the Chirst Child to my son’s St. Joseph, the Just.

Sure he does work at school, but he is doing math, writing, reading, geography, history, and catechism. That in addition to three Spanish lessons a week, music, gym, art and a weekly school Mass – where some other parents and I provide the music.
 
Montessori is the concept that children are miniature adults. For example, with Montessori, child playing house can not pretend to be dog or cat because they will never be a dog or a cat.
To me it sounds a bit restrictive and robs children of immagination.
 
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khkhk:
I have to agree with you, I hate homework! Why can’t school be done in school??? Instead of doing it at home…what’s the point??? Taking away family/social time???
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Homework is family/social time. That’s why it’s called homework. My wife and I (more my wife than I, to be honest) sit at the table with our children while they do their homework. We check their homework. If they don’t understand, we help. If they make mistakes, we help.

I’m a middle school teacher. I give homework in English almost every day, but with a catch. I also give 15-30 minutes of class time to do the homework almost every day. This allows me to help the students, because the purpose of homework is to practice the skills being taught. I also never give homework over holidays or weekends.

Even if the work is done in class, it is still supposed to go home so that the parents/guardians can see what their child is doing, and can keep themselves informed about their child’s progress.

For elementary school age children, there shouldn’t be more than 30-45 minutes of homework. For middle school, no more than 60-90 minutes. Of course, this is based on an average. A student with an exceptional grasp of a particular lesson may finish in record time. A student with a poor grasp of a particular lesson may take longer.

It is in the latter case that parents are especially important. Parents are the first educators of their children, but too many think that they get to abrogate those responsibilities just because the child is in school.

As for teachers helping students one-on-one, we all need to remember that this isn’t always possible. Teachers have more than one student and a variety of administrative responsibilities, the latter of which eat up a substantial amount of time, including family/social time in the teachers’ lives.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
My only complaint with homework is the “artsy-craftsy” projects. Ever do “can a character”? Spend hours making an empty tin can look like a historical character. Tell me what in the world the student learns about history dressing up a tin can? What a total waste of time!
 
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Tom:
My only complaint with homework is the “artsy-craftsy” projects. Ever do “can a character”? Spend hours making an empty tin can look like a historical character. Tell me what in the world the student learns about history dressing up a tin can? What a total waste of time!
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I agree with you on that! My husband is an artist and very creative, so our daughter got lots of ideas and suggestions for her “dioramas”. I had forgotten about those until she had to do them. The art project in a shoe-box! I never understood what the kids learned from them. The teachers would have you believe it gives the artistic but not academic oriented kids a chance to excel. But I think that such homework is mostly ridiculous and teaches the kids next to nothing. Though I suppose you could argue that it teaches kids planning and is a good parent-child project (when mom or dad are in a position to help).
 
Perhaps the cans and dioramas are good for the “hands on” children??? I am throwing out theories here.
 
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Lilyofthevalley:
Perhaps the cans and dioramas are good for the “hands on” children??? I am throwing out theories here.
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I understand what you’re saying lily, but, for the “can a character” they need to use an electric drill ? ya think I’m gonna let a child use a power tool? Not likely. and if they want hands on, fine, do it in art class not history.
 
Tom, the drill gun thing is off the wall in my opinion.
The history can character~were/are they learning in a way where the subject was used for history, reading, geography, math, and art?
 
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Lilyofthevalley:
Tom, the drill gun thing is off the wall in my opinion.
The history can character~were/are they learning in a way where the subject was used for history, reading, geography, math, and art?
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History. it is crazy.
 
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Lilyofthevalley:
Montessori is the concept that children are miniature adults. For example, with Montessori, child playing house can not pretend to be dog or cat because they will never be a dog or a cat.
To me it sounds a bit restrictive and robs children of immagination.
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Wow, where did you hear that about Montessori? :confused: I have never heard that a child can’t pretend to be an animal. I also have seen where they don’t tell a child what to paint – painting just to smear colors and see what happens is just fine. Is that restrictive?

The miniature adult concept is pretty much the exact opposite of what I have heard most people say about Montessori - since the children are taught to be self-directed most people think that kids never are taught anything and just do as they please. And the learning content is not important.

In the classroom, there is a child who gets to set the prayer table for a week. They have florist rejected flowers to make an arrangement and they are given a box with several appropriate themed items to place on the table. (I made the table cloths. I got learn how to make mitered corners.)

The wood sensory motor things are not all the same size. They allow much creative problem solving. and building options. My son has never been told he couldn’t create the things he does. Kids who want to be rough and tumble in the classroom. are capped down on, but I have never heard such a concept as you put forth.

There is a policy that the classroom should be peaceful and beautiful. I have seen them teach my son to read and write, add, subtract and multiply, cosmic understanding – the solar system and it’s relative placement – geography and sensory motor concepts while he was in the pre-academic class.

They haven’t restricted him, the concept of the abosorbant mind of preschoolers meant that I would tell them Latin and common names of the bones of the cardboard skeleton. They weren’t quizzed and expected to write it down from memory, but they learn that a clavicle is a collar bone, etc.

In our Destination Imagination district, our school was the smallest school to participate and we had the highest number of teams/members on that weekend. We had a team that won it’s division and got to progress. There is plenty of creativity in Montessori.
 
I think the Destination Imagination results are very telling, Mammamull. Obviously your school really encourages imagination and thinking outside the box. How wonderful that your son is going to such a school.
 
I can understand the asking a child to decorate a can is affordable, but impractical.

In preparing for the All Saints Day event. We read to our first grader about St. Joseph, the just, and then we answered a set of questions from the teacher. After that we chose what he wanted to say about the saint. I wrote it down and then he copied it.

He will get to use a notecard for presenting his saint to the class, but he must be looking at the kids when he is talkng and not the notecard. 👍

We are choosing fabric and tunic style for his costume. I will sew, but he gets a say in how he wants it to look. This projest is good for Christopher, he is learning much about “one of the good guys” and ideas for how to model his life on that saint.

It is kind of major for a six year old, but we are enjoying our family project. 👍
 

Wow, where did you hear that about Montessori?​

My sister in law, she is a child life specialist.

I have never heard that a child can’t pretend to be an animal.​

That is how she explained it to me. Also, at the Montessori school I sent my son to, it was very restrictive. They had to play ONLY on their little portion of cut rug. The teacher was very beside herself when my son, who was four years old, wanted to play. It was horrible that he was still in that play stage!! According to her anyway.

I also have seen where they don’t tell a child what to paint – painting just to smear colors and see what happens is just fine. Is that restrictive?​

That sounds like a Waldorf approach. OR it maybe that the teachers are leaving out that portion of Montessori.
 
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